BrendaEM on 26/1/2008 at 01:53
What I hate most is that many people could only see what was not, and not what was.
jtr7 on 26/1/2008 at 02:32
Fortunately, that's not the case, here. Most people rate TDS around a "B". This is a complaint thread. Complaints, it is hoped, will bring constructive changes that will improve the problems the majority agree detract from a fully-satisfying end to the trilogy. We hate the irony that we were robbed of a third act of Thief that should've meshed with what the other two set up. Knowing that the devs were also unsatisfied is confirmation.
It's also hoped that any future attempt by some company to make a game worthy of the Thief title will see the common complaints and avoid making those mistakes, or make them an acceptable change. We know change is unavoidable.
Those of us who are enamored with The City, the stories, the other characters, the factions, Garrett--ALL of it--are struggling with the fact that TDS breaks with canon, and the only way to justify the changes is to fill the gap with fanon. Fanon that embraces the old AND new and tries to equalise them and make a cohesive, three-part story. It's supposed to be a trilogy. The spirit of the games involves much more than how nice the sets look, what period the architecture evokes, the voice-acting, the music, etc. I can play through TDS and say "wow!" over and over, and smile, and laugh when it gets something right (even if it's a new element), but I cannot ignore the problems. The problems with the first two games lent themselves to creativity and fun, much more than the problems with TDS. I will repeat what has oft been said: We WANT TDS to be worthy of the title. It can still happen.
Praise for TDS by TDS fans always includes comments about the game that the majority cannot relate to. I would hope that the fans of TDS would realise that they are not seeing the game that the disappointed fans of Thief see. Niether side can see the other's perspectives, but the Thief fan keeps presenting evidence. The TDS fans are not seeing our praise, either. Yes, it's buried in complaints, but to imply it isn't there at all is inaccurate, to say the least, and it will backfire. Try another tactic: If TDS fans want to communicate a presumably healthier perspective than its unsatisfied customers project, then stick to the facts. Always stick to the facts and quote your sources with a strong sense of the original context, that way the other side either has to make stuff up, or admit their bias, or agree. The Thief fans have already explained themselves, far beyond individual and personal opinion.
I do not know if the TDS fans believe that negative = unhealthy and positive = healthy, or if it's some other belief. More information, please.
To see the TDS fans get together and make T3Ed do something along the lines of why we petitioned for it to begin with is great! It's a rare person who can dedicate themeselves to removing loading zones, implementing rope arrows and swimmable water, and making the Enforcers threatening. We want to see this happen, and hope to see it all in a finished state. And bring back the steampunk, dammit!:cool:
Thief_4 on 26/1/2008 at 02:33
worst part about thief 3 was the movement,if thief 3 would have been made using thief 2 engine it would have been great
User was banned by Digital Nightfall on 8-4-2008
Lady Rowena on 26/1/2008 at 03:58
Quote Posted by twisty
It's difficult for me to pick just one thing, but definitely the movement of Garrett is probably the worst thing that I had to put up with. I never really felt in control of my avatar in the final installment whereas the previous games felt natural to me and far more immersive. This has been the main reason why I have never gotten around to replaying TDS after completing it the first time; and is why I have no intention of reinstalling this game or playing any FM's made by the fan community.
That is exactly how I feel about TDS. I just forced myself to play it. I never felt confortable with the blackjack and I missed the sword. I hated the respawning enemies in the city, which in fact forced me to ghost, and I hate ghosting.
I didn't even like the architecture too much; it was nice, but it had a fake feeling, like a movie scenery.
To all this I must add the disappointment and the anger because they wasted the chance to made a great game. :(
theBlackman on 26/1/2008 at 04:12
To pick a single most disappointing feature is the movement of Garrett. If I am walking *the real me* and turn my head to the left with the intention of moving left, my body turns and I go left.
In TDS the body continues in the direction it was moving, and only turns a step or two later. This, of course, walks Garrett off a cliff, into a wall or results in some such unwanted action.
The second most annoying was the "Body Physics". I've see professional contortionists who would be hard pressed to get close to the assinine posture of the AI who drop from a BJ in this game.
There are others, but when the designers/makers decided to dumb down the game to port it to a console in order to attract a larger market base, they blew the whole concept the original games worked so hard to create.
In TDS Garrett comes off as a clumsy, unimaginative oaf. Player creativity, skill development, and inventiveness went by the board.
Many of the FM's, in particular The Seven Sisters, The Seventh Crystal, Calendras etc., are far superior in game play, design and plot than TDS will ever be.
Goldmoon Dawn on 26/1/2008 at 06:47
I agree, especially about the skill delevopment. Thief used to be about exploring in free roaming 3d environments. Deadly gutted all exploration type environments and tools, and focused on short, fast paced hide in shadows/kill situations. Obviously, the broken movement was enough to turn away purists, such as myself. I fell off a simple beam too many times before I gave up. Not to mention the other fatal flaw! Broken difficulty levels!!! Oh Lord, why must we make threads like these?! Deadly Shadows (when compared to Dark) is a failure. On the extreme surface, the game "looked" like a Thief title. Throw in the Light Gem, and that's about it. It "looked" like Thief, and had a working Light Gem. lol Ultimately, if they just stripped the game down to Missions only and actually had decent cutscene work and real briefings, it could have been less laughable. Strike that, it prolly would have been worse. At least this way, they can always look back and say that they were "experimenting." Adding the City sections, I think, was designed to spread the game out, give it a sense of depth, and make it seem more "slower paced" and well thought out. In reality, it speeds the game up even more. Once the fan first realises that his days of endless adventure and exploration are over, he finds himself running through a crowded little town back and forth to find the next "Mission". And why the Hell was Garrett talking so damn fast in those "briefings"??? He must have something better to do?
Andarthiel on 26/1/2008 at 08:09
Quote Posted by Dr.Haggard
If I had to pick one thing it would be the way they screwed up the Pagan dialogue. TDS has atmosphere in buckets IMHO, but the one thing that's guaranteed to drag me back to the real world and ruin my immersion in the game is the comic Pagan dialogue. It ought to sound sinister, it ought to send shivers down your spine when they speak, but whoever wrote the Pagan dialogue for Deadly Shadows simply didn't
get it, and with his or her misunderstanding of the simple dialect managed to turn the Pagans into a caricature of their former selves.
The difference between this and the myriad small problems I have with Deadly Shadows is that this is not a deliberate design decision, this is just the result of the lack of a basic sense of drama and atmosphere, and not enough familiarity with the first two games. A stupid and unnecessary mistake in other words.
Almost everything else I have got used to, almost everything else is minor and really shouldn't be an issue (loot pickup sound? jumping? weapon order? oh come
on), and decisions Ion made that can either be fixed by tweaks or simply put up with. It's a great game, just sadly not quite finished and suffering from some rather misguided design ideas, but nevertheless still great.
Are you kidding me? I loved the pagan voice acting. It didn't sound sinister but they're not designed to be sinister either(unless you're talking about the treebeasts). The pagans are not too different from the Hammerites just worshiping an opposite aspect, so they're just zealots all the same. Now the Keepers were more sinister IMO. I think that the pagans didn't have a large enough part in the previous two Thief games. I love the Pagans in DS:cheeky:
The thing I'll have to complain about is the jumping, Garrett is a bit less mobile than before and the health bar thing too but they are minor drawbacks and I can finish the game perfectly with them. Perhaps also with the loading areas thing, they could do what CD did with Soul Reaver 1 and have loading on the go.
But otherwise I love this game, the lighting is nice, the gameplay is nice. Voice acting is awesome especially those Nobles in Auldale:laff:
I'm sort of a "new school" Thief fan, not so keen on T1 but love T2 and T3:laff:
SubJeff on 26/1/2008 at 12:02
The gameplay mechanics. Borked.
Beleg Cúthalion on 26/1/2008 at 12:08
@ jtr7: That sounded like there were two groups of Thief fans, which wouldn't face any reality I guess. It's similarly difficult with people "not sticking to the facts" who can be found on both sides (this time I mean the ones who like TDS and the others). But as it was said before, I think complaining about TDS over and over again won't make the game better – and seems to me a little unsatisfactory.
But a more interesting thing; in which cases do you think did TDS clearly break with the canon? We had the viktrola in the Cradle, but did you find remarkable other things? I assume that the German translations were made by someone else and we have some discontinuities there, but I guess they are not in your field.
Winter Cat on 26/1/2008 at 12:27
No automap, no rope/vine arrows, no swimmable water, and those loading zones which crashed a lot, because of them the missions are not so large and atmospheric like in T1/T2.
